Eating Disorders: Recovering Connections

As LGBTQ-identified people, we are taught from an early age to ignore and/or attempt to change the signals our body gives us. When our bodies experience attraction to somebody of the same sex, we have already internalized the message that, "You don't really like him/her, you just want to be like him/her."

When this training about ignoring our most basic of physical needs and instincts is combined with the genetic predisposition for an eating disorder, the consequences can be dire.

The prevailing cultural narrative on eating disorders, would have us believe that this is an illness largely impacting only young, white women and is thereby a disease of the "privileged" and not a "real problem." This thinking is not only inaccurate, it is dangerous. In fact, eating disorders are the
most lethal mental illness, due to the combination of medical complications and depression that often accompany diagnosis.

With this harrowing knowledge we must acknowledge that, as with other mental health issues, the number of LGBTQ people struggling with eating disorders is disproportionate to our actual population size.

It is reported that 42 percent of men with eating disorders identify as gay. Rates of eating disorders in LGBTQ-identified women are similar to rates in cisgender, heterosexual women. In contrast, one figure from the Williams Institute of UCLA puts the adult population of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the United States at 3.5 percent of the total population (or around 9 million people). The same study states that approximately .3 percent of U.S. adults identify as transgender. Put in this light, it is apparent that LGBTQ people are particularly vulnerable to all forms of eating disorders.

As an LGBTQ person working specifically with patients struggling with eating disorders, I have learned a few things. Eating disorders are, generally speaking, a metaphor. Food becomes a representative, or a mechanism to control other struggles and stressors. When we recognize that LGBTQ people have an instilled tendency to question the body and its motives, it isn't that far a leap to recognize that this tendency can and does easily inform how we relate to the rest of our body's needs.

Cameron Esposito, a lesbian comedian based in L.A., has begun to openly discuss her own struggles with anorexia and bulimia, sharing that her sexuality, eating disorder and body image struggles are inextricably linked. As a pre-teen girl, her peers recognized her "differentness," what she later discovered to be her lesbian orientation. She believes that her peers mocked her body size and shape because they did not have a better word for what they were noticing. As a result, she began restricting her food intake, believing that a "normal" body would solve this problem. She had relationships with men, but felt disconnected from all her physical encounters with them. As a result, rather than restricting her food intake, she entered a binging cycle in order to fill the gap left by that disconnected feeling.

A sense of connectedness is vital in eating disorder recovery, regardless of gender or sexual identity. Eating disorders thrive on isolation and the more connected somebody is to a support system, the better chance they have at recovery. For LGBTQ people, this also means feeling connected to others who identify the same way. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, "A sense of connectedness to the gay community was related to fewer current eating disorders, which suggests that feeling connected to the gay community may have a protective effect against eating disorders."

When we know that our experience of sexuality and gender is not simply a "different" thing about us, but a real experience shared by nine million others in this country alone, we can once again learn to trust our bodies and the messages they give us, rather than feel betrayed by them.

ABOUT EATING RECOVERY CENTER

Eating Recovery Center (ERC) is the only national, vertically integrated, health care system dedicated to the treatment of serious eating and related disorders at any stage of the illness through an unmatched network of multiple locations across seven states. ERC offers best-in-class treatment programs for all patients, no matter their age or gender, struggling from: Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, eating and weight disorder, unspecified eating disorders, as well as comorbid, co-occurring and dual diagnoses.

For additional information, call 877.789.5758, email info@ eatingrecoverycenter.com or to speak with a Master's-level clinician, go to eatingrecoverycenter.com